The Blithedale Romance | Chapter 18 Summary

Coverdale had left Blithedale in part to escape the questions tormenting him about his three friends, but once he had gone he began to dream of them, of Hollingsworth and Zenobia kissing passionately while Priscilla looks on in sadness.  Coverdale had at first thought that he had lacked humanity in being so concerned with his friends' situation, but now believes that "it was through too much sympathy, rather than too little", that he erred.

As he gazes out the window of his own hotel room at the boarding house across the way, Coverdale notices that the dove he saw the day before is still there.  His eye is then caught first by "a girl's figure, in airy drapery", visible in a narrow window next to the drawing-room on the first floor, and then by a second figure which appears in the drawing-room window itself.  As fate would have it, they are the figures of Priscilla and Zenobia.  Zenobia is dressed not in the shabby clothes she had worn before but in a "fashionable morning-dress".  Behind Zenobia, there is a man, whom Coverdale recognizes as Westervelt. Westervelt quickly becomes aware that they are being watched by someone, and recognizes the observer as Coverdale.  Westervelt says something to Zenobia, who "signifies her recognition...by a gesture...comprising at once a salutation and dismissal".  She then lets down a curtain closing the window from view, while at the same time, Priscilla disappears from the other window as well.